Discussions on the Escapist forums

[geldonyetich]

The Internet is big, far bigger than any forum reader has time for, and so they will bother to read entire posts.

"will not bother" surely?

I saw that myself. I was going to fix it when I got home. (While I was at it, I streamlined it quite a bit -- it's an old post of mine that was imported rather haphazardly. Still can't get the list items to space out properly worth a damn - stupid closed-box CSS.)

To an extent, it's even more irony that I was being nit picked when you pointed it out - apparently I've got your number.

 

[Lullabye]

Some people just have to be elitists who can't leave something they don't agree with alone. It is ironic how they act really immature trying to flame you for having an opinion they felt was childish, what with disliking Bay when you can ignore them.

I don't get that either... Why do we have to ignore things? If we don't like something, we will want to talk about that with others to release aggression or to hear their opinions in order to see if you have judged the object you didn't like wrongly. But I digress. Wouldn't want to derail a thread.

I agree with this sentiment whole-heartedly. It's infuriating being told "Oh, just ignore him / her / it" when part of the human experience is sharing our likes and our dislikes. And on top of that, it's often rather hard to ignore certain people / films / games given the all-pervasive modern media ramming it in our faces.

Which says nothing of the irony of berating someone who's opinion you dislike with the words "Just ignore it"...

I completely agree, yet I can't help but remember many a flame war light through the inability of certain individuals to simply drop the subject. I live life by the saying "Pick your fights" which has proven most helpful.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Some people just have to be elitists who can't leave something they don't agree with alone. It is ironic how they act really immature trying to flame you for having an opinion they felt was childish, what with disliking Bay when you can ignore them.

I don't get that either... Why do we have to ignore things? If we don't like something, we will want to talk about that with others to release aggression or to hear their opinions in order to see if you have judged the object you didn't like wrongly. But I digress. Wouldn't want to derail a thread.

I agree with this sentiment whole-heartedly. It's infuriating being told "Oh, just ignore him / her / it" when part of the human experience is sharing our likes and our dislikes. And on top of that, it's often rather hard to ignore certain people / films / games given the all-pervasive modern media ramming it in our faces.

Which says nothing of the irony of berating someone who's opinion you dislike with the words "Just ignore it"...

I completely agree, yet I can't help but remember many a flame war light through the inability of certain individuals to simply drop the subject. I live life by the saying "Pick your fights" which has proven most helpful.

You need some common-sense these days... which is, as this joke has said way to many times, is surprisingly uncommon.

 

[A Weary Exile]

Maybe my posts are a bit short, but I've always had a knack for explaining my viewpoint in as few words as possible.

See? Like I did there.

 

[Three Eyed Cyclops]

That's not why i like the escapist

For me, the Escapist is one big family with friends around every corner that we can speak and argue with without fear of any bad outcomes.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not on a crusade to change the mentality of Escapist users or anything. I probably would prefer it if sometimes it was different (as I said in my last post, when a nice topic gets "ruined" so to speak), more to my liking, but I'm not so spoiled to think that everything should be the way I want it. A major part of the reason I made this topic has been satisfied to be honest, namely, that I wasn't crazy and the thing I described does happen quite a lot around here.

I think that it is not unreasonable to want to have some intelligent discussion on these forums. One thing that I have found is that some of the best disussions I have had with people over the years are those in which I have first met through having some other common interest. If you look at my post count, you will see that it is unusually low for someone who has been a member here for 8 months. Its not that I don't visit this site often (almost daily) and read some posts, I just find that only a very small amount of them warrant any sort of response. For the most part I will only write a comment if I feel that there is something that I can bring to table or if there is something of genuine interest to me to ask.

One thought I had while reading other people's responses is if it would be possible to have a section that would be devoted to proper discussions. This would make it easier for those of us who care about debates and exchanges of ideas to find those few and far in between actual discussions.

 

[Lullabye]

Some people just have to be elitists who can't leave something they don't agree with alone. It is ironic how they act really immature trying to flame you for having an opinion they felt was childish, what with disliking Bay when you can ignore them.

I don't get that either... Why do we have to ignore things? If we don't like something, we will want to talk about that with others to release aggression or to hear their opinions in order to see if you have judged the object you didn't like wrongly. But I digress. Wouldn't want to derail a thread.

I agree with this sentiment whole-heartedly. It's infuriating being told "Oh, just ignore him / her / it" when part of the human experience is sharing our likes and our dislikes. And on top of that, it's often rather hard to ignore certain people / films / games given the all-pervasive modern media ramming it in our faces.

Which says nothing of the irony of berating someone who's opinion you dislike with the words "Just ignore it"...

I completely agree, yet I can't help but remember many a flame war light through the inability of certain individuals to simply drop the subject. I live life by the saying "Pick your fights" which has proven most helpful.

You need some common-sense these days... which is, as this joke has said way to many times, is surprisingly uncommon.

....not quite sure what you mean? Forgive me I've been up for the past 45 hours typing a freaking essay, 2 different poems and a short story in italian. My brain is kind of shot.

 

[Scikosomatic]

as it will/has been said by others, the forum is just sooooo large, making it difficult to keep track of the conversation. it;s fair to say that we'd all like our opinions heard.

 

[Incredible Bullshitting Man]

*snip*
Don't get me wrong. I'm not on a crusade to change the mentality of Escapist users or anything. I probably would prefer it if sometimes it was different (as I said in my last post, when a nice topic gets "ruined" so to speak), more to my liking, but I'm not so spoiled to think that everything should be the way I want it. A major part of the reason I made this topic has been satisfied to be honest, namely, that I wasn't crazy and the thing I described does happen quite a lot around here.

Oh don´t worry, I didn´t mean to attack you personally. I too have noticed, how some interesting topics get drowned out by more inane ones, but I just don´t fret over it so much. It certainly is a shame, but it happens.

I understand what your´re saying, and trust me, you´re not crazy.

 

[achilleas.k]

I think that it is not unreasonable to want to have some intelligent discussion on these forums. One thing that I have found is that some of the best disussions I have had with people over the years are those in which I have first met through having some other common interest.

That's exactly the reason I stick around a get a nice discussion once in a while. Common interest usually sparks lovely little discussions and arguments.

One thought I had while reading other people's responses is if it would be possible to have a section that would be devoted to proper discussions. This would make it easier for those of us who care about debates and exchanges of ideas to find those few and far in between actual discussions.

Well, we did manage to reel in the IT director! [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.161546.4118764].

 

[Cherry Cola]

Some people just have to be elitists who can't leave something they don't agree with alone. It is ironic how they act really immature trying to flame you for having an opinion they felt was childish, what with disliking Bay when you can ignore them.

I don't get that either... Why do we have to ignore things? If we don't like something, we will want to talk about that with others to release aggression or to hear their opinions in order to see if you have judged the object you didn't like wrongly. But I digress. Wouldn't want to derail a thread.

I agree with this sentiment whole-heartedly. It's infuriating being told "Oh, just ignore him / her / it" when part of the human experience is sharing our likes and our dislikes. And on top of that, it's often rather hard to ignore certain people / films / games given the all-pervasive modern media ramming it in our faces.

Which says nothing of the irony of berating someone who's opinion you dislike with the words "Just ignore it"...

I completely agree, yet I can't help but remember many a flame war light through the inability of certain individuals to simply drop the subject. I live life by the saying "Pick your fights" which has proven most helpful.

You need some common-sense these days... which is, as this joke has said way to many times, is surprisingly uncommon.

....not quite sure what you mean? Forgive me I've been up for the past 45 hours typing a freaking essay, 2 different poems and a short story in italian. My brain is kind of shot.

T'is a joke. Common sense will tell you that everyone has different opinions and they should be respected for it. But common sense seems uncommon. Get it? Common, uncommon? ... Yeah, it's a lame joke.

 

[Lullabye]

Some people just have to be elitists who can't leave something they don't agree with alone. It is ironic how they act really immature trying to flame you for having an opinion they felt was childish, what with disliking Bay when you can ignore them.

I don't get that either... Why do we have to ignore things? If we don't like something, we will want to talk about that with others to release aggression or to hear their opinions in order to see if you have judged the object you didn't like wrongly. But I digress. Wouldn't want to derail a thread.

I agree with this sentiment whole-heartedly. It's infuriating being told "Oh, just ignore him / her / it" when part of the human experience is sharing our likes and our dislikes. And on top of that, it's often rather hard to ignore certain people / films / games given the all-pervasive modern media ramming it in our faces.

Which says nothing of the irony of berating someone who's opinion you dislike with the words "Just ignore it"...

I completely agree, yet I can't help but remember many a flame war light through the inability of certain individuals to simply drop the subject. I live life by the saying "Pick your fights" which has proven most helpful.

You need some common-sense these days... which is, as this joke has said way to many times, is surprisingly uncommon.

....not quite sure what you mean? Forgive me I've been up for the past 45 hours typing a freaking essay, 2 different poems and a short story in italian. My brain is kind of shot.

T'is a joke. Common sense will tell you that everyone has different opinions and they should be respected for it. But common sense seems uncommon. Get it? Common, uncommon? ... Yeah, it's a lame joke.

Yeah, it is a lame joke......hah, no, i get it. And i can't really see it as a joke since it's true....
OT: I haven't really noticed the whole "one liners" trend, but now that you mentioned it I can't stop seeing it. Just a total lack of communication between members of the community. I find it kind of depressing that people are so reclusive, even on the net.

 

[JemJar]

/snip

I completely agree, yet I can't help but remember many a flame war light through the inability of certain individuals to simply drop the subject. I live life by the saying "Pick your fights" which has proven most helpful.

I live life by the saying "What would Optimus Prime do?" but the opportunities to transform into a truck and ram my enemies occurs rarely so I prefer the original essay used for Baz Luhrmann's Wear Sunscreen [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-sunscreen-column,0,4054576.column].

Curious asides to this conversation:

1) Has anyone else done what I have and blocked themselves?

I find it cuts marginally on the big scary walls of text, although I must admit it started as one of those "I wonder if you can..." moments and stuck.

2) Is there anything we, as users, can do which would improve matters?

Not meaning to put pressure on the mods or anything; I'm more thinking in the wider sense of forum usage. I find it can actually be quite hard to link together one user's posts as a thread progresses - should we all be attempting to use some sort of customised font, font-colour or background-colour in order to make our writing more identifiable and thus easier to follow down the length of a page?

This has particular relevant when quote-pyramids start forming, it's easier with a user's avatar next to their words (errr, yeah, sorry folks) but once quotes start stacking up you need to follow names - easy for straight back and forth banter, harder for compound conversations.

Or would such guff simply clutter the forums and encourage certain members to start with the crazy multi-coloured flashing text?

3) Is there anything to change from a technical standpoint?

Not expecting the mods to overhaul forum code single-handedly, of course (though thank you for taking an interest in the thread Virgil), but is forum construction itself to blame? Would retro-active linking of posts help to follow a thread? By which I mean, if you are quoted should there be a note at the end of the post linking to the later post which quoted your own points?

Could forums incorporate code to achieve some of the suggestions in section 2, in particular assigning backgrounds to a user's posts within each thread? Or allowing a user's avatar to be displayed within a quoted post?

===

Some of the above is clearly crackpot ramblings fuelled by a tired brain that is only allowed to think in French during the working day and is rebelling in style. But it should give you all some material to read, consider and discuss whilst I get some sleep. I bid you all good night.

P.S. Because good behaviour should be rewarded I would like to thank all the posters in this thread so far for being competent, interesting and constructive. I'd like to give a special mention to RAK who is not short of fans already but whose posts I invariably find interesting.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

The problem, though, is that I sometimes only read the people who I know - if there is a new person with a good answer, I might not read it.

That's an issue with internet popularity. The more well-known posters will obviously get more attention than the newcomers or the lurkers who are barely known on this site. This is something I do myself as well; people whom I know of or am friends with I will concentrate on more than other users.

I would post more detail to this post, but what I want to say has already been said, so I'll simplify it a little bit.

As has already been said, size of the forums is a serious issue with discussion. Since these forums are open to all, anyone can say whatever they want on any topic they like, but this means that they can end up being put against the person who has spent two years studying this topic as well. Because of this, discussion gets abandoned by the former of the two users and the user turns to another thread to post their opinion on.

The other issue is what people want to discuss on these forums. This site is open to any discussion withing guideline boundaries, which includes a lot of threads that don't really favour discussion much, such as list threads. And whilst we do get the users who want to form a good and long conversation on something, we also get the users who just want to post what their favourite *blank* is and talk very rarely to other users about why that is, which I find quite ironic if such actions come from the OP, seeing as he's the guy asking about what other people think on the subject.

1) Has anyone else done what I have and blocked themselves?

I did it once to see if I could, since this was just after I was told by a member of the Tech Team that you could and I wanted to test out the ignore list anyway. I didn't stick with it, though, seeing as I don't write enough walls of text for it to be worth it.

2) Is there anything we, as users, can do which would improve matters?

I remember once seeing a user who would post what she wrote in purple for it to stand out, but for the life of me I can't remember who did it now.

I think the issue with organising the community to help achieve such a thing would be that it would be just trying to organise something far too big. The community by this point has outgrown the possibilities of doing such a thing, even though it would be beneficial to be able to do so.

3) Is there anything to change from a technical standpoint?

I'm not sure how easy it would be to do such a thing as linking to posts that have quoted yourself or any of the suggestions in section 2, not being a member of the Tech Team obviously, but I don't think the staff here would view it as worth it. The HTML coding for this site is set up so that when users post, that their posts come up in a certain style that is the same as every other post unless specified by the user themself and stays in that style. Finding ways to change what's said at the bottom of someone's post over time and user-unique text would be too problematic for such little benefit for it to be worth the staff's work, which is one of the main reasons why requests get turned down.

P.S. Because good behaviour should be rewarded I would like to thank all the posters in this thread so far for being competent, interesting and constructive. I'd like to give a special mention to RAK who is not short of fans already but whose posts I invariably find interesting.

I also agree with this. And with that, I'm off to bed as well. If this thread is still around tomorrow I'll carry on talking then about posts and stuff.

 

[JemJar]

2) Is there anything we, as users, can do which would improve matters?

I remember once seeing a user who would post what she wrote in purple for it to stand out, but for the life of me I can't remember who did it now.

I think the issue with organising the community to help achieve such a thing would be that it would be just trying to organise something far too big. The community by this point has outgrown the possibilities of doing such a thing, even though it would be beneficial to be able to do so.

Wasn't entirely looking to organise people and assign them fonts and everything, but if a few people were to colour all their text as a matter of principle others would follow suit.

Of course, it wouldn't be fool proof and may even be worse if the same colours came up together. Not to mention that the community at large would have to preserve the BBcode whenever they quoted someone, and the kind of people who'd do that are probably the kind of people who're posting in this thread.

 

[achilleas.k]

... and the kind of people who'd do that are probably the kind of people who're posting in this thread.

I have no idea what you're talking about.


I'd like to personally thank everyone who commented on this issue and did his best to avoid one-liners.
I really don't expect any kind of layout change to affect this trend really and well, I don't expect any layout change period (just because some random dude made a thread?). This colour idea is nice, but what are the chances that, in a thread where 100 people are commenting, you would get even 5 different colours? On the other hand, alternating background shades between adjacent posts (darker and lighter backgrounds) does help keep posts separated visually and is something very common on almost any interface with a list in it.

Oh oh, here's an idea. In the same way we have "most popular", "most commented" and "latest" threads, maybe we can have a "most wordy" threads, where they get listed by words per post (when number of posts > 2 or somesuch).

Meh, stop trying to change things. We're fine as it is.

 

[xDarc]

...

You bastard. I was going to post a thread on this exact phenomenon. Although, I would have done it with much less tact and a title that read: "Another Pointless Drive-By Opinion Thread on the Escapist."

I came from mmorpg.com forums after 5 years. It dried up like a dog turd over there when the religion and politics nimrods took over and it never recovered. That was before fancy things- like sub-forums! Kids dunno how good they've got it. Not seriously- but speaking of kids-

I also think it's a symptom of how young everyone is here. There is definitely a disproportionate amount of teenagers compared to a lot of the other sites I've frequented over the years. Years- Kinda scary when you think about it... 13 years of "internets." It's really warped my mind. Maybe it's just me. Ignore me.

 

[achilleas.k]

You were? That's actually kind of freaky... and funny. Also funny is that when making this thread, I had no idea what to search for to see if anything like it had been posted before. At least you stumbled on in here and it saved you the trouble right? Unless you're feeling bitter that you missed your chance to expel all your rage, in which case, you can just use this thread instead, but keep it mildly civil.

EDIT: Forgot my colour

 

[xDarc]

You were? That's actually kind of freaky... ... At least you stumbled on in here and it saved you the trouble right?

That's ok. You probably just saved me from my from my first slap on the wrist. I spew some real bile at times, and you did it with tact and provoked thoughtful discussion. Better you did it.

 

[Nova5]

I also think it's a symptom of how young everyone is here. There is definitely a disproportionate amount of teenagers compared to a lot of the other sites I've frequented over the years.

This would most definitely be a contributing factor. It seems that most of the teens are rushing to make the next 'clever point' that will revolutionize the way we all think, but generally comes off as some kind of snotty remark or a paraphrasing of something one of the reviewers on here has stated prior (intentionally or not, I can't tell).

I'm fairly certain this comes from G4's weekly preview of Yahtzee's next video (if they still do that), as the number of these 'I agree/disagree' posts spiked rather dramatically after that started. That, and I generally believe the kind of people who largely watch G4 (if the guys I knew to watch it in my hometown are of any indication, though admittedly not a fantastic sampling of data) would carry this behavior and general lack of typing ability*.

I never used to do this, but since I joined these forums I have noticed I do it more and more often.

Largely the same here. The last three months it has been especially bad on my part, since creating this account.

About a year ago, I was contributing some essays periodically to these forums with some discussion coming out of it, but it eventually became no one really read a damn word of it before commenting, or somehow managed to completely misconstrue the point (likely due to not reading it, again). After a few months on hiatus, I forgot my password, created this account and gave up on actually typing up anything more than a mere two or three paragraphs.

*On a side note, I generally try to avoid threads with a misspelling in the subject line for just that reason, unless I'm feeling pissy.

 

[achilleas.k]

Oh oh, here's an idea. In the same way we have "most popular", "most commented" and "latest" threads, maybe we can have a "most wordy" threads, where they get listed by words per post (when number of posts > 2 or somesuch).

Wouldn't really be a fair contest. This thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.155147] has an 8,000 word original post, and a detailed analysis in one of my other posts. This thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.105860] has a 5,100 word original post. I think you see where I'm going with this. After a point, it just gets unruly and difficult to follow.

Plugging our own threads are we?
I know what you mean. It was the first thing I thought when I came up with the idea, which is why I added the (posts > 2). You get the point though.

EDIT: Nice work on both those threads by the way. I'm going to have to be working into the wee hours now that I've "wasted" an hour reading that. I liked the car one better, mostly because I find car stupidity far more annoying than iPhone stupidity.